a goddess in the lensic

The Lucinda Williams show last night in The Lensic was incredible. The acoustics in The Lensic are probably the best in town and were an unbelievable showcase for Williams' unbelievable voice. She noted the sound was good and played a generous long set with a generous long encore. The set included lots of my favorites: Essence, Joy, Get Right with God, Metal Firecracker, Concrete and Barbed Wire, Righteously, Too Cool to be Forgotten, plus lots of new as-yet-to-be-recorded stuff. A million guitars (well, a dozen at least). God what a great show. Williams usually seems not too psyched when she first comes out (this was my fourth time seeing her) and then warms up, and gets into it, particularly as it becomes obvious that the crowd is in love with her. ("We love you Lucinda" was yelled out at regular intervals). She is such a badass it is mindboggling. A lot of her new material was interesting. What I love about Lucinda is that while so many of her songs are dark and sad and about, as she said, "sex, drugs and rock and roll" the poetics of her lyrics transcend cliche and her continued pushing at the genres she works in: country, blues, pop, alt.country, make her really innovative. Well, she's a genius, that's all there is to it. One of the stellar talents of our culture.